we are not responsible
for accounting enemy losses.
u.s. army information officer
in iraq
if it is
murder to gun
down an unarmed
man.
what is it to
obliterate a bunker
of sleeping
men?
a residential apartment
building or a van
of frightened
mothers & crying
children?
why do we so
solicitously count our
dead & mend our
wounded
to leave our
enemy’s torn
bodies for
carrion, their anonymous
women grieving &
nameless orphans
abandoned.
are we too
sweet to have
enemies? too
sympathetic
to engender
hate?
are they not
brave who
rally before our
devastating
force of
arms?
who
die for
their country’s
honor?
a two-ton
bomb has no
memory.
we push the
buttons and change
channels
too bored to
remember whom we
sanctioned
killed or
why.
but these dead,
although in
paradise, will never
forget.